Sam smiled at her and then his expression got a little more serious as he leaned in closer. Was he, could he possibly be, maybe, actually going to kiss her? Across the counter? No way. Please way. Izzy was fairly sure that she couldn’t breathe at this moment if you paid her. He was leaning further. If everything and everyone else had seemed far away before, now it was as though they were in a different universe, all to themselves. Although he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the counter. Shouldn’t he be focusing on her eyes and lips, like she was on his? He had lovely long, thick, dark eyelashes.
‘Bacon’s on fire,’ Sam said.
‘Shit.’ Izzy stopped fantasising about what would obviously have been an earth-shatteringly amazing kiss and whipped the bacon off the griddle and into the bacon tray. All the congealed fat in there caught fire immediately. She batted at it with the tongs. The fire just grew.
She chucked a full jug of water over the tray just as Sam said, ‘Tea towel.’
Izzy stared into the tray. ‘A tea towel would have been better,’ she said. ‘It would have cost a lot less to replace than all this bacon.’ There was no way any of it was servable now.
‘Izzy,’ Terry yelled. ‘That’s coming out of your wages.’ Seriously. He was apparently blind to all sorts of things that happened where she could have done with a bit of help, but the second she made a mistake, he was on it. So annoying. Terry didn’t exactly source his bacon from high-end, ethically run local farms – it was definitely all from battery-reared, antibiotic-fed, miserable pigs from the furthest corners of Europe – but there still had to be at least three hours’ pay worth of bacon in there. It was a big tray. That plus the dry cleaning was going to mean a whole morning’s work that she effectively wasn’t going to get paid for. Izzy carried on staring at the bacon and thought about resigning. No. She really couldn’t. She really needed the money.
‘Hey.’ Sam only raised his voice a bit but everyone, including Terry, stopped talking and turned to look at him. ‘That was my fault,’ he said. ‘The bacon. You can’t take it out of Izzy’s wages.’
‘Someone’s got to pay for it.’ Terry was sticking his chin out, as though he was squaring up to Sam. He was standing well back from the counter, though. Without the counter as protection, he’d probably have been running, or waddling, for the door. Sam didn’t even twitch, Izzy was pleased to see. He pulled his wallet from a pocket and took out a couple of notes.
‘Forty pounds to cover the bacon,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure it’s worth a lot less than that.’
‘I can’t let you pay for it,’ Izzy said. She really couldn’t; it wouldn’t be right. But forty quid. Bloody hell. Forking out for that would mean a whole week of surviving on beans on toast. Terry was already stuffing the money into one of the back pockets of his low-slung jeans.
‘Really not a problem,’ Sam said.
‘No, honestly. I don’t actually have forty quid on me right now, but I’ll pay you back. Do you live nearby?’ Please let him live nearby. It would be easier to see each other if they didn’t have to travel. Although it didn’t really matter. She’d go anywhere for him.
‘Just moved in round the corner.’ Sam indicated with a nod of his head. ‘Although why am I telling you that? You absolutely aren’t paying me back.’ So generous – they were definitely meant to be – and a huge relief given Izzy’s current financial situation. She’d make it up to him in the future.
‘Thank you so much. I owe you big time.’
‘Holding the customers up, Izzy,’ Terry boomed.
‘Sorry.’ Izzy didn’t look round. She really didn’t want to stop talking to Sam, or looking at him, drinking in his face, the way he held himself, the way his accent rolled. He was smiling at her again.
‘I should probably eat my breakfast,’ he told her. ‘Busy day ahead.’
‘Of course. Here’s your coffee and here’s your no-bacon Full English. I’ll put some more on the griddle and bring over a couple of rashers in a minute.’ She’d given him the three most nicely done sausages, instead of two, to make up for the lack of immediate bacon.
Sam took the plate and mug from her and put them on one of the café’s delightful stained plastic trays. He had very nice hands. Very strong-looking, very capable. Good nails. Not bitten, but not long. No jewellery. Perfect, in fact.
‘Thank you.’ He smiled at her again and then took the tray over to a table close to the door and sat down with his back to her.
‘Full English please, love,’ said Greg-the-Groper. He leaned in with a leer. ‘Izzy.’ Marvellous. She glared at Greg. Her name sounded a lot better on Sam’s lips.
The whole time Sam was eating, Izzy snuck glances at his back. It was really hard to concentrate on the other customers. Sam had taken his jacket off to eat. His forearms were amazing. She could see the muscles flexing in them as he used his cutlery. When his bacon was ready, she was going to go over and have another chat. Definitely.
Bugger. The bacon wasn’t cooking because the gas under the griddle was off. The water must have spilled over and put it out. Never mind. She flicked it back on. It should heat up quickly. She looked back at Sam. If she craned her head slightly, she could see his profile as he ate. He had an intelligent face. A nice face. Very nice.
She was feeling physically sick with nerves, like she had before she gave her uni presentation the other day, although in retrospect that hadn’t been such a big deal; this was way bigger. The conversation they were about to have could be one of the most important of her life, their lives – the start of something big.
And then Sam finished eating just before the bacon was ready. He pushed his chair back, shrugged his jacket on, stood up and made for the door.
As he reached it, he turned towards her, gave her a little salute, which, from anyone else, would have looked ridiculous, but from him looked exactly right, and said, ‘Goodbye. And good luck.’ He accompanied the good luck with a little eye roll and a smile. Izzy laughed. What she actually wanted to do was cry. He was leaving. Walking out of her life. She’d been just about to go over and speak to him but he’d gone.
The café’s tinny radio was blaring out Noddy Holder, the last few bars of ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’… the soundtrack to Izzy’s horrible, sinking feeling that the love of her life was walking away from her.
Although, maybe she didn’t have to let him walk away. Maybe she should go after him, seize the moment. She pushed her way out from behind the counter and through the café, ignoring Terry’s shouts.
She registered a shock of cold air hitting her as she burst out of the heat of the café into the December day, and then she saw Sam at the end of the road. She started running. There were shopping-bag-wielding and Christmas-accoutrement-holding people everywhere, in her way, most of them meandering. Clearly, nothing really important was happening in their lives at this moment. Izzy ran faster, weaving.
‘Sam.’ Her panting shout sounded pathetically quiet against the traffic, but he must have heard because he stopped and turned.
‘Izzy.’
‘Hi.’ She came to a halt in front of him.